Our Offerings to the Lord
The collection taken during the Liturgy is part of our worship. We offer the Lord our lives, our prayers, our gifts of bread and wine, and our financial gifts. Last Sunday, 50 people attended the Liturgy. Our offering was $390 in the collection, $100 in donations, $250 for stole offerings, $10 for candles, and $345 for the lunch. Not everyone can make an equal gift, but everyone can make an equal sacrifice. Many thanks for your generosity.
Welcome to Abouna George Khoury
We welcome Fr George Khoury to St Elias Church and thank him for celebrating the Divine Liturgy with us today. Fr James is on an Advent Retreat with 25 students from the University of California at Santa Cruz Newman Catholic Center. We are blessed to have Abouna George and his family as part of our community.
Thanks from Father James:
Many, many thanks to everyone who came to celebrate my anniversaries last weekend. I truly am grateful for your prayers and good wishes and gifts. I pray that I may continue to serve this faithful and loving community for many years.
Please Complete Your Parish Registration Form
Please fill out and return to the church the Parish Registration Form that has been mailed to all households. We ask each family and each single person over 18 years old to complete a form. The new Parish Councils need to update our information about who is a member of the parish, with spouses’ and children’s names; current mailing addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses; ways in which you would like to use your talents to help our parish community; and suggestions, comments, and questions. The information of course is confidential, used only for church purposes, such as starting a Youth Group and reorganizing Religious Education.
Bible Study/Prayer Group Will Meet Again 10 December
Our Bible Study and Prayer Group will meet on Thursday 10 December at 7:30 pm in the church. Please read the Bible selections for Sunday 13 December (Colossians 3:4-11 and Luke 14:16-24) to prepare for the discussion.
Help the Hungry: Give to St Elias Food Bank
The coming of cold, wet weather and the continuing recession make life difficult for many people in Silicon Valley. Today our Church begins a 40-day fasting period in preparation for our celebration of the birth of Jesus at Christmas. On every Sun-day in this Christmas Lent, please bring food and other necessities so that they can be given to the needy through the St Vincent dePaul Society of St John Vianney parish.. These groceries will feed a family of four for two days: 2 cans meat, 2 cans vegetables, 2 cans fruit, 2 cans soup, 2 boxes macaroni & cheese, 1 box dry soup, 1 box cereal, 1 pound rice or beans, 1 box powdered milk, 1 can milk, 1 jar peanut butter, 1 box crackers. Soap, hand lotion, breakfast cereals (not the ones with lots of sugar, please), toothpaste, disposable diapers & detergent are always needed. Our Food Bank is a large green bin at the back of the church for your donations.
Archbishop’s Appeal: Give Thanks by Giving Back
At this time of year when we offer thanksgiving for all God’s blessings, Our Lord speaks to us in the Gospel about storing up treasure in Heaven and about being rich in the things of God. Let us give back to the Lord in return for all the blessings he has bestowed upon us. Let us give thanks to God for the precious gift of our Melkite Church and pay a tribute of thanksgiving for the labor and sacrifice of our forebears in the faith who have gone before us. Offer your thanks to God by giv-ing a generous gift to the Archbishop’s Appeal. Gift forms and envelopes are also available on the table at the back of the church. Thank you for your generosity.
Bishop Nicholas Samra Will Visit St Elias 3-6 December
The Most Reverend Nicholas Samra, Titular Bishop of Gerasa and retired Auxiliary Bishop of the Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton, will visit St Elias Church for several days in December. His time with us will include a presentation, book-signing, and reception in the evening of Thursday 3 December and the Divine Lit-urgy on Sunday 6 December, the Feast of St Nicholas the Wonderworker, followed by a parish lunch.
On Thursday 3 December at 7:30 pm Bishop Nicholas will discuss “American Melkite Identity: The Vision of Archbishop Joseph Tawil.” Earlier this year, Bishop Nicholas published The Courage to be Ourselves: The Legacy of Archbishop Joseph Tawil. His presentation will highlight the vision of Archbishop Tawil as a vision of Church that remains as relevant today as when it was published nearly 40 years ago. Copies of this book will be available at Bishop Nicholas’s lecture for purchase and autographing. Following the presentation, attendees will be invited to meet and talk with Bishop Nicholas at a wine and cheese reception for a donation of $10 to St Elias Church.
Parts of the Liturgy Change with the Seasons
The basic structure of the Divine Liturgy remains the same on every Sunday. But certain parts of the Liturgy change according to the feast-days and seasons of the Church year.
For certain feast-days we sing special verses from the Psalms for the Antiphon near the beginning of the Liturgy, and sometimes the Trisagion (“Holy, Holy, Holy”) is replaced by “All of you who have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Alleluia!” or “We bow in worship before your Cross, O Master, and we give praise to your Holy Resurrection.”
Of course, the Troparia change every Sunday according to the tone of the week and the feasts or saints commemorated on that date. Almost always, the last hymn sung at this point in the Liturgy is a Kontakion, usually “O Never-failing Protectress of Christians,” but also varying according to the feast or season.
Much later in the Liturgy, toward the end of the Anaphora or Eucharistic Prayer and immediately after the sanctification of the bread and wine, we remember “every righteous soul who has run the course in the faith, especially our all-holy, spotless, most highly-blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever-virgin Mary.” Then we sing the Hirmos, a hymn to the Mother of God. For most of the year, the Hirmos is this:
It is truly right to call you blessed, O Theotokos.
You are ever-blessed and all-blameless and the Mother of our God.
Higher in honor than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim,
you gave birth to God the Word in virginity. You are truly Theotokos; you do we exalt.
But for feasts of the Lord and of the Mother of God, and for certain days and seasons, such as Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday, the Paschal season, and Pente-cost, special Hirmoi are sung. From 21 through 25 November, for instance, we sing the Hirmos for the feast of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple:
The angels were stunned as they saw the Virgin coming in.
How has she entered in glory into the Holy of Holies?
O Mother of God, you are the living Ark of God.
No profane hand may touch you, but the lips of the faithful will never cease to sing your praise, repeating with joy the angels’s words:
“O Pure Virgin, you indeed raised above all creatures.”
From 25 through 31 December, we sing the Hirmos of the Nativity of the Lord:
O my soul, magnify the Virgin more glorious than the heavenly powers.
Behold a strange and wonderful mystery:
The cave is heaven, the Virgin a cherubic throne,
the manger a noble place where Christ, the Uncontainable God, reposes.
Let us praise and magnify Him!
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Please help in whatever way you can. This is our Church, our Home.
9TH SUNDAY OF THE HOLY CROSS. 25TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. SECOND DAY OF CELEBRATION OF THE ENTRANCE OF THE THEOTOKOS INTO THE TEMPLE; HOLY APOSTLES PHILEMON, APPHIAS, ARCHIPPOS & ONESIMOS; HOLY MARTYRS CECILIA, VALERIAN & TIBURTIUS. (Tone 8).
Apostolos: 
Ephesians 4:1-17 Gospel: Luke 12:16-21
ORTHROS (MORNING PRAYER)
DIVINE LITURGY OF ST JOHN CHRYSOSTOM for the priests ALAM, GEORGE, RON, CONRAD, JIM, JUSTIN, SHAUN, BERNARD, MICHAEL, DAVID, KEN, JERRY, & RICHARD; for the deacons KYRILL, TAREQ, MOSES, GERALD; for Subdeacon STEPHEN; for IBTISSAM AND WADIE, BILL & SHIRLEY, CLAYTON & BARBARA, TOM & DOUGAL, JEANNE, SUE, AGNES, MANUEL & IRMA, DONNA, JOEL & BRAULIO, PATRICIA, PETE, EDDOLENE, SHEILAH & PAUL, KYLE, GEORGETTE, NADA MASSOUD, ISHAK & JULIA KALDANI, JOSEPHINE, SAMIRA, ROSE HARRIS; SOUAD ZAKHER; VICTORIA; TONY, CHRISTINA & RICHARD; TONY; NADINE, ABU HALIM, SALWA, JOSEPHINE, SAMIR, MARGE, MILDRED, AMANDA, RACHEL, MAUREEN & AGRIPINO, NAOMI, FRAN, MARGARET, JENNY, ED, LAILA, HILDA & JERRY, LUCY, GHASSAN, CLAIRE, CHESTER & GLORIA, RAY & NADIA, ELIAS HAGGAR, NICOL, ISSAM; MIMI, ROBERT & PETER; JULIET, VERONIQUE & GEORGES, SAMIR & SUZAN, GEORGE & MARLENE; JOSEPH, JACK, DIANA, the in-fant MICHAEL, DOROTHY, STEPHEN & PATTI; MARY, AMAL & GEORGE & FAMILY; OPHELIA, LAURE; DAVID, DEANNA, ANTOINETTE, ADEL, MONIQUE, GEORGE & ISIS, RAFIK, MAHER & THERESE, KAMAL & EUGENIE, BENJAMIN, YOLANDE, FATHI & MARO, GINO, JOHN, MARK & ADAM, ROULA, FRANCIS, JOHN & JONELL, ELAINE, EVA, SHIRLEY, JASON & MICHAEL, DONALD & NORA, RICHE, RON, BILL, WAYNE, DOUGLAS, ROSEANNE, ENRIQUE, ROSE & ROSALEE, MARIAN, ZAIDA, MICHAEL & JOHN, HELEN, VIRGINIA & BILL, YOLANDA, NADJA HADDAD & FAMILY; MARIO & MOUNA & FAMILY; NABIL DAMOUNY & FAMILY; in memory of JARED ORTIZ (by Enrique Ortiz Villegas) and of VICTORIA, NAZAR & FARID DIMITRI (by Nisreen Lahlouh).
13TH SUNDAY OF THE HOLY CROSS, 26TH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST. HOLY MARTYRS PARAMON AND PHILUMENES. (Tone 1)
ORTHROS (MORNING PRAYER)
DIVINE LITURGY OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM.
Apostolos: Ephesians 5:8-19 Gospel: Luke 18:18-28
